Wow...what a trip!

They say that if you want to make God laugh, just tell him your plans. My plan, as you all know, was to write $2000 worth of articles for Demand Studios in the month of April. Someone up there with a little more control had other plans for me, and I did not make that goal.

I have been bothered in recent months by a burning pain in between my shoulder blades and in my chest along with stomach upset. It generally only lasted a day or two and I chalked it up to Acid Reflux. I toyed with the idea of going to a doctor, but decided instead to buy some Zantac. It seemed to work at first.

The weekend of our towns Sweet Onion Festival, it flared up really badly and was pretty much continuous for days. Then it eased a bit. By the next weekend, it was worse than ever and never let up. I could not eat, sleep or concentrate on anything. I made a doctors appointment for the following Tuesday but by Thursday I was in so much pain I decided to go to the ER. At the ER they ran what seemed to be a thousand tests and decided that I had stones in my gallbladder and that it was infected.

They scheduled me for surgery the next morning, and I was not overly worried. Gallbladder removal is generally done laproscopically and involves several small incisions. Having had some experience with that type of surgery when I had my tubes tied I knew that the recovery would be difficult but short.

It turned out that my gallbladder was so badly infected that there was gangrene in and around it, and E Coli in my bowel....gross, I know! They had to do more extensive surgery to remove it and that involved an incision that runs half the width of my abdomen under my ribs and two smaller incisions.

I woke up in the recovery room to see my sweet husband sitting next to me and hearing the voice of his aunt, one of my favorite people in the world. I felt like I had been run over by hubbys big truck, had two I.V's and a catheter. But the overwhelming pain in my back and chest was gone....I was grateful for that!

It has been almost two weeks since the surgery, and the staples from my incisions were removed yesterday. The drain tube is still running into my abdomen and parts of the incisions are still slightly open. I still feel like I have been run over, but it is getting a little better each day. And I am alive. The gangrene in my body could have easily killed me, according to my surgeon. I will not make the mistake of ignoring my health again.

To make an already long story short, I didn't make my April goal and I am not prepared to set a goal for this month because I am still trying to heal and get back to work. I have managed to write a few articles since coming home, but the most I have done is two in a day. Next month I will set another goal and get back to business. Right now I am to busy spending time with my precious munchkins and enjoying the flowers that are blooming in the yard. Life becomes a lot more beautiful after it is threatened and I intend to enjoy every minute of it from now on.
I learned that lesson once before when my wonderful father in law passed away. I wrote about it here. Writing the article was great therapy for me, and maybe I need to read it more often so that I don't forget that lesson again!